Grand Mother

The power of vagina itself was divided by whether the woman was a virgin, sexually active, married or divorced, widowed i.e. one that didn't practice sex. Since the old days, certain apotropaic power was ascribed to women for which it was believed that weren't sexually active such as widows or divorced women. In case that children are dying in a family, a pregnant woman would seek to collect rags from nine widows and sow a shirt using the rags. With the shirt she would ensure protection against death. Similarly, the best stravarka which cures evil was thought to be the one which is divorced, probably because of the allusion that she had stopped sexual connection with the man. After giving birth, the next 40 days, she was forbidden to have sexual relations, which can be connected with the taboo of the Grand Mother, since it is believed that during that period she is in the grave with one foot (concept of earth i.e. Grand Mother) and in the phase of recovery and regeneration and that she shouldn't expose herself to energy which is produced by coitus. But, after that, the woman becomes the barer of sexual power which is used to continue reproduction. In spurring reproduction, the woman is called on the vagina through a magical formula, for example, while planting beans she would repeat: Shrubs as bushes, may you boil as a turnip, may you be as sweet as my vagina! A married woman i.e. a sexually active woman, accumulates a lot of fertility energy and uses it to a maximum extent to all things which precede the creation of the foetus. The term vagina is often used in love magic, when women place or wipe sugar cubes on their vagina and place them in their husband's coffee. In Bosnian magic it is claimed about a woman that she possesses two types of blood; the first has the power to enchant a certain man and the second to curb his temper and wrath. A strong force is hidden in menstrual blood and its magic is based on the number 40. From certain information givers, of older age, I heard that women would try and go have a bath before their husbands after sex, and only after her did the husband go. As soon as they would shower, they would pour the dirty water from the tub and she would turn it upside down, uttering a magical formula. When the husband would arrive to have a bath he would turn the tub and would be "struck" by the spell with which the woman wanted to dominate him. Similarly, in the desire to firmly bind her husband to herself the wife would place nine sugar cubes underneath the matrass in the middle where their genitals are placed when they're lying. On each sugar cube she dropped three drops of blood and uttered a magical formula. That night her task is to make love to her husband and to place those sugar cubes during the following days into his coffee or some other drink. Besides the mentioned utilising energy which is created due to sexual act is very famous in other forms of Bosnian magic, especially the one which we call white magic. When she wants to avert her husband from alcohol the wife would take a fistful of dirt underneath a bridge, she would wrap it into a rag and place underneath the marital bed. She needs to make love to him and in the morning take the dirt underneath the bed and feed him the dirt in the following few days slowly or mix it into his drinks. If the husband is being prepared to go on an important trip then he is making love with his wife and in the end he says: As this coitus is sweet to you, woman, so too shall we be followed by sweet luck! Then he would take off his coat and cover her vagina uttering: Here is an old coat and I will go with luck on my trip! Then the woman would lightly thrust the penis into the anus three times. Sperm which is a result of a sexual act, especially one mixed with vaginal juices, represents a sexual sacrament whose power is great that if it were absorbed by a rag it can later be used in individual magical rituals.